Quick upgrading advice.

[BoomAM]

Hi.
My local supplier (OCUK) has an amazing offer of a Hercules9800 for £130. & rev3 VGA silencers for £11.
I currently have a 9700pro. Which wont overclock for nothing.
As i have about £250 in the bank doing nothing. I was thinking of treating myself, and getting the 9800 with the vga silencer, and overclocking the hell out of it. Hopefully hitting around XT speeds.

I also plan to skip a cpu/mobo/mem upgrade till mid next year when all the changes have taken place (sockets, pci-e, ect; ).

Now. I have two options;
1) Buy the 9800pro, and overclock it. And hope that it will do any game at 1024x768 or 1280x1024 fine till next may.
2) Wait 2 weeks till i next get payed, and get a X800pro, or depending on price/availability, a 6800GT or X800XT PE.
3) Keep the money and do nothing.

Analysis for each option (imo);
1) Would probably do what i want it to do stock. Should OC quite a bit. BUT, in stock form, its less than 5% better than my 9700. A OCed, i may see upto 20% depending on the situation. Is that 5-20%worth £130?
2) The X800s/6800s would certainly do what i want them to do till next may, but, is it worth spending that much in one go, when in less than a year, that £250+ video card would not be able to be used on my upgraded system. Forcing me to shell out again for an expensive video card.
3) Theres nothing i need to buy the in immediate future, and i feel like treating myself, so i could do with getting something.

Whats you opinions guys/gals?
Im swaying towards the 9800pro.

 

[BoomAM]

Or option4, which ive decided on;
Spend £190 on 1gb geil mem & an Abit An7 mobo. Stick my xp1800 in it, and if it doesnt clock very well, use £60 of my next paycheck to get a XP-M2500, and overclock that.
A nice little upgrade that`ll do more than 5% performance increase! lol.

 

[ShinX]

i decided not to get the X800 Pro , i'm upgrading to a 9800 pro and 1 gb of Mushkin pc3200 instead , for WAY less

 

[Marsumane]

It isnt worth the money to get the 9800. Nowhere near worth it. Here is a few options:
1) the x800 is worth it IF you can find it for ~$375ish
2) the GT is better then the X800 pro, and even if you disagree the X800 will be lower in price upon the GT's release so I would preferably wait.
3) You are insane to get anything above what u already have in video cards. You have an 1800+ and THAT WILL BOTTLENECK YOUR GPU IF YOU GO INTO X800 RANGE.... I guarantee this.
4) Dont do option 1 or 2 before you do exactly what u said u could do in option 4 due to the bottleneck. I reccomend the same processor u mentioned, a good hs/fan (vantec, zalman, etc), an Abit NF7 or Abit NF7-s mobo, and TWO 512 sticks of ram for dual channel (pc 3500 or more in a reliable brand: aka ocz, kingston, corsair, crucial, etc), and keep your current graphics card. This is necessary before you upgrade your graphics card in order to make your system more ballanced. The NF7 series is good in gaming, which i assume is your main purpose for this system, and that is why i reccomended it. Also make sure you have a good quality ~350W psu.

 

[ponyo]

I would suggest saving your money until PCI-X motherboards are common along with much faster processors. I think it would be a waste to buy these AGP new gen cards and use them for about a year and then unable to use them in your new motherboard along with new processor. Your 9700 Pro along with current rig is better than 95% of people out there so I would use it for at least another year.

 

[whateverdude]

interesting, I have a

P4 1.6 oc'd to 2.0
1 gig of pc2100
asus p4b-266c mobo
9700 pro

and you think it would be unwise to upgrade this year?

 

[filmore crashcart]

I'm pretty much in the same boat. I have the "upgrade" urge, currently have a P4 2.4B slightly overclocked on a IWill P4HT, 512 of pc 2700, and a 9800 np. With all confusion of what is coming out on the market, and, to give me time to save up for all this "exciting" new stuff. I decided to let my money sit in the bank, earn interest, and keep saving for all this new stuff in the fall.
All this info about new motherboards changing the video card slot has certainly kept me in check on running out and buying the "latest and greatest".

 

[Lonyo]

I found that I got a bigger boost going from an XP1900+ to an XP 2500+ @ 2.3GHz than I did from going Ti4400 -> 9800
I would go for the CPU before the graphics card.

 

[VIAN]

I would get a new processor - cause yours sucks and it will affect you more than the video card.
Some new RAM too.

That would be my primary focus if you wanna last through the rest of the year.

Upgrade to something small, like a 2400 xp mobile and some PC2700 512MB for cheap and a a7n8x - that's probably about 200 or something right there and have fun with that.

Question: can you play UT2004 with everything at the highest? If you can't then the CPU/RAM is your bottleneck, and that's just now Image another year of that.

 

[BoomAM]

Well.
I came to buy, and the shop didnt have the parts i wanted in. So i thought "ah well, couldnt be arsed resetting up windows anyway!".
And this afternoon, i constructed a "super cooled" GeForce3 for a mate. GeForce3 + Zalman ZM80C-HP + Copper Ramsinks, and Overclocked it from Ti200 to past Ti500. Its reawakened my OCing addiction again!. So ive ordered that 9800pro. With a Rev3 VGA Silencer.
Slightly wasteful in some eyes, but i want to upgrade, and i want to treat myself. If i cant do it at my age, then im biggered if i can do it when im older!.